Last Tuesday we discussed how experiences that people once lived directly have shifted to being lived
indirectly through representation. This concept is what sparked my idea for my
Show and Tell. Since it has become so easy to take pictures at any moment of
anything we see, we truly are living through representations. So often, we see
the world through the eyes of a camera. The camera puts a filter on everything
we see; it changes the view from 3D to 2D. Thus, not only are we putting a
filter on our lives, but the filter really isn’t that great. It often makes
things less beautiful and detracts from our ability to directly experience them
– so why do we keep doing it?
I shared
a couple of examples related to this topic during my presentation. Last week, I
had seen a bright yellow bird on campus that I knew my dad would like to see. The
bird was up in a tree, so it was pretty difficult to get a good picture of it
on my phone. I kept trying different angles and zooming in and out. The end
product was about fifteen semi-blurry pictures of a yellow bird. I couldn’t
make out any of its other markings and I couldn’t really tell how big it was.
Not only were the pictures hazy, but so were my memories. I couldn’t describe the
bird to my dad because the whole time I had been watching it, I was seeing it
through the screen on my phone.
My other
example was about travel. When we go to new and beautiful places, we seem to
have a strong impulse to photograph them. For instance, when I was in Nicaragua last summer I was constantly taking pictures of all of the beautiful scenery rather than just
looking at the window and taking it in as it went by. As a result, my memories
of the views through the screen on my phone are stronger than my memories of
the actual place. Unfortunately, the pictures on my phone are a lot less beautiful than the real views were. A similar phenomenon has occurred before when I have been in
Europe, on hikes, or when I’m looking at a gorgeous sunset. I feel the need to
take pictures so I can go back and look at them to remember the experience. But
how often to I actually go back and look at the pictures? How much has the act
of taking the photograph detracted from the experience in the moment?
In
class, the discussion expanded to video recordings and social media. Often we
feel the need to share our experience with the world, which ultimately takes away
from our time living them. People constantly post Snapchats of concerts or political
events or even the Super Bowl. The goal seems to be to convince others that we
are having a good time at these events. However, the distraction of posting these pictures and
videos makes our experiences less memorable and less valuable. In
many cases we are forced to choose between enjoying an experience fully in the
moment or documenting it to share and to be able to enjoy again later.
Overall,
I think it’s a positive thing that we have this impulse to record and document.
If we didn’t, we would not be able to look back at videos of ourselves as
little kids. We might not get that laugh from a goofy picture we took with our
middle school friends. Even more, we would not have documentation of history;
we wouldn’t have pictures of the March on Washington or of the Pietá before it
was smashed with a hammer. It’s good to record things for ourselves and for
posterity. I just think that we need to be more careful about fearing loss so
much that we don’t get to experience anything directly. I think we need to
choose to actually listen to the concert more often than we choose to record
it. I think we need to choose to take just one picture of the Notre Dame
cathedral when we visit it rather than fifty. Perhaps then we will be able to
see and embrace more of the world without that artificial filter.
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